These rules come in a digest sized, staple bound book with a glossy color cardboard cover. The interior art is all line art, cartoon quality, and of humorous intent. The text is divided into unnumbered sections, describing the world, character creation, equipment and all of the other rules. The original Og (The Game of Senseless Prehistoric Combat) tactical rules are included, as well as a section on live action Land of OG rpging.
Although hard to justify at the cover price, Land of OG is fun just to read. Anyone who has been around the rpg block will be tickled by the humor as the author is obviously a gamer pointing fun at his hobby. More so than humorous to read, LoO is also playable and humorous to play too. The premise is simple, you and your comrades are cavemen, working at surviving in a hostile world of dinosaurs and other obstacles. To make matters more difficult, language is limited to 18 words and each character only knows a few, most likely a different few. So communications includes a lot of gestures, drawings and grunting. It's as much fun to watch as it is to play.
Characters choose classes, from "smart caveman" to "banging caveman". Each of the six classes corresponds to one of the six attributes rolled. Attributes range from 1-18, generating a PC entails rolling 1d6 for every attribute save the one that corresponds to your chosen class (2d6 for that one). So, the need for scores above 12 is difficult to understand but it does give you that warm D&D feeling and may just be a part of the joke.
Even magic is addressed in the form of the "grunting caveman" class. Although there is no definite result it appears as though the "grunting caveman's" noises and gestures make miraculous things happen at opportune times… or nothing happen… or bad things happen at inopportune times. Actually it's more of a luck roll, a chance for the GM to get the players out of a bind and/or add more humor to an encounter. The cavemen believe in the power in any case.
The rule's systems are pretty much limited to skills and combat. Skills are easy, you have them or not, the GM decides success. New skills are acquired as PC advance in level. Combat is simplified as well, everything is done with d6. Character class determines number of d6 rolled and target number(s) that equal a hit. Each die that rolls a "hit" counts as a hit on the opponent, who subtracts defenses before affecting his hit points. Experience is awarded for accomplishments within one's class or skills, as well as for good role-playing. An alignment system is available but does little for the game. Ranges are "really, kinda, not" and "good, bad, ugly", "kinda bad" being the standard for the average cavemen.
Play is very old D&D familiar. With communications limited, wandering from one encounter to the next is normal. When all else failed my "banging caveman" head butted whatever was nearest and the fun began to pick up speed. At one point our clever GM had us run into another tribe and we tried to communicate. Same 18 words available only he made theirs French! Needless to say, we ended up chasing each other around, fighting, trading, fighting and then wrestling for some "small animal carcass" (the only monetary unit of measurement in OG). When we parted ways a member of their tribe came with us. I'm not entirely sure why. I think we traded for him. It was apparent they didn't want him around. I can only assume he was a "smart caveman" and therefore annoying to the rest of the tribe. We let a dinosaur eat him so we could get away.
The live action rules are more guidelines for making live play of the tabletop rules possible. Suggestions are provided and cautions concerning weapon construction. The "Og: The Game of Senseless Prehistoric Combat" rules are playable but very simple. Obviously the forerunner of the rpg, it is just another optional diversion for a gaming group. Not as funny as Land of OG, not as fun either.
I have spent $10 on less enjoyable items to read and to play. It's easy to learn, quick to play and a great diversion for on shot or campaign play to loosen up a gaming group.
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